Colonial Park Cemetery

Colonial Park Cemetery served as Savannah’s primary public burial ground from 1750 until 1853. The city estimates that more than nine thousand graves lie within its present six acres. The number of surviving markers is far smaller, so the ground’s visible monuments can only hint at the people buried there.

The cemetery began as a parish burial place and expanded as Savannah grew. Its aliases—Old Cemetery, Old Brick Graveyard, South Broad Street Cemetery, and Christ Church Cemetery—record how people used and understood it across generations. The 1820 yellow fever epidemic brought another wave of death to the city. Hundreds died, and a public health crisis pressed on a town with limited medical knowledge and infrastructure. The cemetery is associated with those losses, though exact totals vary in retellings.